This invention relates generally to educational tools and more particularly to reading machines which are used as part of a remedial reading program to assist individuals with learning disabilities or for reading machines for use by persons with severe visual impairments or blindness.
As it is known in the art, reading machines have been used to improve the educational attainment of individuals with learning disabilities. They have also been used by persons having visual impairment or blindness. In general, known reading machines are computer based. That is, the reading machines often include a personal computer having specialized software that provides a reading machine function to the computer. In addition, the reading machines include other PC type components such as a monitor, an audio system, a disk or mass storage device, and a keyboard. In general, specialized software processes an input source document and generates synthetic speech to enable a user to hear the computer read through the document a word, line, sentence etc. at a time. Often these reading machines include a scanner to provide one technique to input source documents to the reader.
Like any other computer-based system, often a user requires assistance in manipulating through a particular application. It is known that for many types of operating systems supported by computers, such as Windows,.TM. WindowsNT.TM. and Windows95.TM. from Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, on-line help features are typically available for the use of the operating system, as well as most if not all applications written for the particular operating systems. Generally, in a Windows-based application program, there are a plurality of pull-down menus. One of those pull-down menus is a Help menu, which when clicked on by a user provides various help-related options to the user. For example, the pull-down menu may include a search capability for a keyword, a table of contents, and so forth.
One of the problems associated with providing a Help feature in a computer-based reading machine system is that oftentimes, the user of the system, whether it be a blind individual or a person with learning disabilities, may not be able to obtain adequate help from the use of the conventional Help menu functions. This is because the conventional Help memory functions are text files which are displayed on the monitor. If the user is blind, this user would be unable to read the displayed text. Similarly, a person with learning disabilities that is using the reading machine to assist in reading may have a difficult time reading the text associated with the help feature. Similar problems also occur when a user desires to obtain a definition of a word. Accordingly, a new approach to provide enrichment function capabilities in reading machines is needed.